Vienna Underground – A Short History

The general public transport in Vienna just isn’t alone on the subway. You will find driving busses, trams and also the overground train. You do not have an exact date for that first day, when drives began about the subway from Vienna. It had been an extremely complicated system. The very first date within the books is 1898 with the opening of Otto Wagners citytram – something which can be nearly the same today. We speak from Line 4 along with a part of Line 6, known today as modern trains as well as in 1898 as rail steam locomotive. The main difference is just a matter of changing times.

Timetable1925 was the season, the location where the City Train was reopened being an urban transport system after being electrified by the city of Vienna. The operation took place, however, with streetcar sets.In 1969, three lines were built: U1, U2 and U4 and connected a lot of places in the city. Inside the time between 1883 and 2000 came two new lines in the center: U3 and U6 as well as in the following many years to 2028 will build the extension in the lines U1, U2 and U5.

New dates for openingThe next first date from your subway of Vienna was 1976 when the first new subway train ran along the way between Heiligenstadt and Friedensbrucke. This is called a “test operation”. In addition, the traveled route had been operational since 1901.Last although not minimal, in the year 1978, was built the very first new tunnel between Karlsplatz and Reumannplatz. It had been opened with big celebrations. Nevertheless, subway trains had been recently on the U4 line for two years.

1898I am inclined to view the year 1898 as correct, analogous for the opening date with the London Underground in 1863: this year too a steam locomotive-powered metropolitan railway was opened in open cuts or shallow tunnels as well as their electrification occurred some time later. The very first electric subway in mining tunnels was opened there in 1890, there is however nowhere a reference – the London Underground do not need been opened until 1890. In this sense, 1898 appears to me to be acceptable to Vienna subway map.

The Middle of a lifetimeAfter The second world war, it was decided in 1946 to come back two-thirds of the area “Greater Vienna” to lessen Austria. The emergence of the “Iron Curtain” and the occupation of Vienna from the four Allies, which lasted until 1955, also acted like a brake on growth. Although a reconstruction-enquiry declared the war project from the Siemens Building Union being an official subway network; it was aimed at an urban area of 3 to 4 million inhabitants, as well as today isn’t in sight. In 1954, Karl Heinrich Brunner therefore presented a streamlined concept – but without any potential for realization. Another utopian project was Rudolf Maculan’s trackless subway (1953).

City TramIn the city, motorized private transport increased strongly from your fifties. The resulting conflict of usage in public roads was then often solved in favor of private transport: As with many places in Europe, the tram network was reduced from 1958, however, not as radical as in other cities. The duties with the abandoned tram lines were transferred mostly for the new bus lines. During these years, there is also an unlucky politicization of the subway question, since the conservative OVP inside the municipal election campaigns in 1954 and 1959 massively advocated for your subway, the dominant SPO and the housing inside the foreground. Roland Rainer’s traffic concept 1961 was accordingly pronounced as U-Bahn enemy. It had been assumed that a Viennese subway would cause excessive promotion from the centrality with the inner city.For details about subway Vienna have a look at the best resource: look at this